Myers gasped when Franks put him down. There was a lot of blood. Franks ripped open his shirt. No vest, not that it would have done any good against a rifle round anyway. Myers screamed when Franks probed the exit wound. The main artery had not been severed. Good. It had gone clean through Myers’ shoulder. No bones had been hit, so minimal fragmentation and no secondary wound channels, but the size of the exit wound indicated that the bullet had begun tumbling. There was a lot of tissue damage and internal bleeding. This was not something he could repair in the field.

Strayhorn dove behind the wall a moment later. He was quick for a human, but his reactions were nothing like Franks’. “Dad!”

“He needs a hospital or he will die,” Franks said.

A chunk of brick exploded into dust over their heads. “They’ve got us pinned.”

The rookie was correct. Franks might be able to move fast enough to get out of here, but it would be a risk. He could take a hit and survive, but if Myers got hit again, he was done. “Keep pressure on this,” Franks ordered as he stood up. He felt a twinge and realized that the bullet had struck him after it passed through Myers, and it was lodged sideways in his hardened sternum. Franks stuck his fingertips in the hole and pulled the deformed piece of lead and copper out. It was .30 caliber, and if Myers hadn’t slowed it down, it might have been enough to punch through to destroy one of his hearts. Franks dropped the hot bullet into the grass. They will pay for that.

The shooter was on top of a crane, approximately three hundred meters to the northeast. Since he’d scanned that area for threats earlier, they must have arrived while he’d been hiding and waiting for Myers. It was too far to engage with his pistol, but since he’d arrived early enough to scout the location, he’d hidden one of his big cases under a nearby piece of tin that had blown off a roof. He vaulted over the low wall and sprinted for it, knowing that the sniper would pick up the movement and track him through the scope. At this range, with him moving laterally, they would need to lead him to give the bullet time to get there to intersect the target. However, Franks was so unexpectedly fast that even an experienced rifleman would more than likely miscalculate Franks’ speed, and by the time they corrected, it would be too late.

ZzzzTHWACK.